


Hear Me Roar

by skyline



Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humor, M/M, song length drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-11
Updated: 2010-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wished it was like that time in eighth grade, when for a joke, he’d stood outside Kendall’s window with a radio, singing along as loud as he could at four am in the morning, just to make him laugh.</p>
<p> Just to see if Kendall would open up that window and sing along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hear Me Roar

**Author's Note:**

> Ten Kames drabbles for the song length meme.

1 **. Monsters Under The Bed**  
They liked to play Super Mario brothers late into the night, long past the time when Kendall’s mom would tell them to go to bed. Some nights, in the spring, the sky would open up and downpour until it seemed like God had opened a chasm that would destroy the world. Thunder would rock the house, but as long as they stayed awake, jamming keys and watching little pixilated figures run across the screen, they could ignore it.

  They _had_ to ignore it, because hockey players weren’t scared of thunder. Sometimes, when their eyes were drooping and they had no choice but to go to sleep, they would cuddle up in Kendall’s bed instead of using the bunks. There, beneath the covers, huddled into each other, James could pretend that this was all there was. Kendall, his bed, and the booms threatening to crack open the world.

**2\. My Only One**  
Sometimes, after a concert, he was just filled with so much pent up energy. Like all the dance moves that had never come to fruition, all the songs they hadn’t yet gotten to perform were bursting out of him. He felt twitchy, on edge, like he had to funnel all of it into _something_.

They’d be mid conversation with Kelly or Gustavo or some record exec who wanted to be connected with the hottest new up and coming band. James would spot Kendall hovering over someone’s shoulder, interested in the proceedings but trying to act blasé about it all, like this was what real life was like for most people. And then Kendall would meet his eyes, a Cheshire grin on his lips and eyes darting toward the bathroom with a mischievous wink. Kendall was the only one who understood, what it was like. All that music, all that adrenaline, it had to go somewhere.

 Which was why James had no qualms pushing his best friend up against the sticker covered door of one of the men’s restroom stalls, yanking down his jeans, working his hands inside his boxers and-

**3\. Hangover Song**  
When James was drunk, it was like the entire world was shiny and new. Colors moved and glowed, everything seemed like a good idea. So after about eight cans of PBR, when he was fourteen and at the first concert he’d ever been allowed to go to, he pressed his lips to Kendall’s beneath the pooling lamplight. Yeah, it had seemed like an awesome plan.

Only, not so much when Kendall pushed him away. It was only when he got home, the back of his neck on up into his brain beginning to throbthrobthrob he realized that he had just ruined _everything_.  
  
 **4\. Enjoy The Silence**  
It was never quiet outside the Palmwoods. Even in the middle of the night, people were constantly returning from photo shoots and movie filmings, places that had once seemed exotic and desirable and were now boring and routine. James had never thought he’d get used to Hollywood so fast.

 He kicked his feet in the water, watching the way it rippled around his legs.

 Kendall was on a date. That too was routine by now. He’d been with Jo for something like two years. It was ridiculous, and James had tried telling him that he was missing out on all the other girls the world had to offer, all the pretty waifs they worked with on their latest music video or the young starlet who’d come onto him at that one premiere.

 Sometimes James wanted to shake him, knock some sense into this boy who was becoming slowly, painfully domesticated, like a housecat. He wondered if Kendall could feel the life slowly draining out of him as Jo clapped her shackles on his wrists or if it was a painless process. Carlos and Logan didn’t seem to mind, but James couldn’t help it. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for; this wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out. Kendall was supposed to be with him. They’d always been happy together, until her. He couldn’t figure out what had changed.

 And so he waited, every night, after every date, just so he could see Kendall come back home looking a little less like the person he’d always known each and every time.  
  
 **5\. Something Rotten**  
James knew something was going on. He wasn’t stupid. Just because he had pretty hair and maybe possibly used a lot of chemicals to get it to look so fabulously shiny didn’t mean they’d sunk into his skull and killed off his brain cells like everybody seemed to think. They just- underestimated him, which was their mistake.

 Kendall was the only one who seemed to notice he had more going for him than a perfect, symmetrical, handsome face. He was the only one who ever treated James like he was more than just the band’s arm candy. He was James’s hero.

 So that’s why, when James walked into the studio on a Thursday afternoon, he was shattered. He’d been searching for Kendall and Logan, who were acting suspiciously sneaky lately, but that was probably because they were just planning a surprise party or something, he’d thought- he’d hoped.

 He’d suspected something, but nothing like this, and all he’d come to do was to tell them was that he didn’t like surprises anyway.

 It was crushing. Kendall, who understood him, who saw past his entire façade, who knew that James was something special because of who he was as a person, was kissing Logan.

 “We can’t tell anyone,” Kendall commanded into Logan’s mouth, the sound guttural and so, so hot.

 Logan nodded.

 James turned tail and ran.  
  
 **6\. Dante's Prayer**  
James didn’t always see eye to eye with Kendall.

 When he first joined the hockey team, he knew he was good. He knew he was better than good. The only competition he had was that Knight boy, who glared at him like in doing so he might be able to make James evaporate. Kendall was a little _bitch_ and James pretty much made it his life’s mission to make the boy’s life miserable.

 Not because James was a diva, and wanted to show the captain who the team’s new star was. Not because he couldn’t stand having such hatred directed at his back as he sped around the ice. Not even because of Kendall’s rather unfortunate addiction to all things flannel. But because Kendall didn’t respect his skill, and that had to be rectified. Stat.

 Somewhere along the way, the camaraderie and passion for the sport pushed them into being friends. Kendall made it obvious that he thought James belonged on the ice. James made it obvious that as much as he pwned Kendall’s abilities, he liked having him as a leader.

 James wasn’t sure how it had happened. All he knew was that on his seventh birthday, there was no one he wanted more at his party. And Kendall came, and he wasn’t miserable. He smiled and laughed and it was _addictive_ , and he kind of made it obvious he did respect James, so what else was standing between them?

 After that, they were together, all the time. Even after two new additions to their group, it was always James and Kendall against the world. They still fought- like the time Jenny Tinkler wanted to date both of them and couldn’t make up their mind, or the time James accidentally almost let Katie run into the street and get hit by an ice cream truck, or the time they both thought they were right about some stupid musical fact that didn’t even matter in the long run.

 Fighting didn’t mean they weren’t still friends. They stuck it out until the end, which brought them to this day, to graduation. When they moved their tassels form one side of their caps to the other and smiled. Because the future lay out before them, but it was still James and Kendall, against the world.  
  
 **7\. Hate It Or Love It**  
Growing up in the Diamond family made a person streetwise. James learned how to pick a lock by the time he was six. He knew how to best anyone in a fight before he could even talk. He was the toughest kid on his block, easy. When his mom made him join the hockey team so he could learn how to operate in a group instead of acting like he was some sort of lone wolf, he hated it. He didn’t like the sport, he didn’t like the bruises he inevitably ended up sporting- because too many made him look like he’d come out the wrong side of a fight, made other kids think they could gang up on him. He didn’t like the stupid uniforms or the fact that his dad would never come to a game.

 But he liked being good at it. He liked that it was the first thing he hadn’t learned that was some kind of illegal. He liked that his team depended on him. And he liked the captain, with his halo of blond hair and the way he always smiled, even after James picked a fight with him and knocked out one of his teeth.

 He had a really nice smile.  
  
 **8\. Tremors**  
At first, James wasn’t really sure what was going on. He’d never experienced something like this before, and it wasn’t like he could ask anyone if it was all…normal. Every time he brushed up against Kendall, it sent tremors down his spine. It didn’t matter where they were; in the studio, swimming in the Palmwoods pool, standing in the back alley of some club smoking a cigarette and watching the stars. No matter what, all it took was a brush of skin and- well, things got awkward and tingly. Sometimes James wanted to grab Kendall, hold him up against a wall and ask if he felt the same way, but-  
  
 **9\. Before Telling Dragons**  
California was weird. It was smoggy and hot and sometimes it felt like it stole the breath from James’s lungs. Logan would take them on road trips up to Monterey or down to San Diego, and sometimes they’d drive so fast James felt like they might careen off the edge of the world. He _loved_ it.

 It was his dream to be here, and it made him deliriously happy.

 But then he’d turn and catch the look on Kendall’s face, Kendall, the entire reason he even got to be here, and it would make him feel like the worst friend in the world. Because it was obvious he hated it. It was obvious he was miserable. And it was obvious there was nothing James could do to get him to change his mind about staying, because that would make everything they’d worked for go up in smoke.

 He had to sit back and let Kendall navigate these waters alone, even if there were sea monsters. And he’d never done that before, never abandoned one of his friends to their own devices. He wanted to help, but he knew if he tried to interfere, Kendall would snap at him, break to pieces, and nothing would ever be the same. Really, he had no choice at all. Even if there were dragons, James had to let Kendall fight them on his own.  
  
 **10\. Niki FM**  
After it was all done and over with, people asked James, was it worth it? Was it worth it to leave everything he’d known behind in Minnesota and venture out to California with nothing but his three best friends and a vague idea of how it was Supposed To Be?

 It seemed like a question with a really obvious answer. Yes, of course. How could it not be worth it to become international pop stars?

 Except, maybe those interviewers saw what James knew. That Big Time Rush had been a catastrophe of sorts. It had broken up friendships James had cultivated his entire life. It had made them all into people they weren’t. And even the money, the fame, the girls- none of it was enough to make that alright. None of it was enough to make him feel like losing Logan, Carlos, and Kendall- god, _Kendall_ -would ever be with it.

 So yeah, sometimes he wished he was back in Minnesota, anxiously awaiting the day their dreams would come true but secretly hoping they never would- that they’d stay like this forever, young and invincible and together.

 He wished it was like that time in eighth grade, when for a joke, he’d stood outside Kendall’s window with a radio, singing along as loud as he could at four am in the morning, just to make him laugh.

 Just to see if Kendall would open up that window and sing along.


End file.
